Category: Motricity IT

With so much emphasis on making packaging that is environmentally-friendly, companies are trying to create boxes that fit this criteria. But along with this, companies are also concerned with having boxes that also waste little if any space once they are filled with products. If your company ships a multitude of products each day and you are seeking new and innovative ways to design a better box, here are some ideas you may want to consider.

Less Is More

If you want to have a box that wastes little space, most packaging experts and designers say less is more. By this, they means having smaller boxes that contain little or no packaging materials, no unnecessary plastic or other similar materials, and making boxes that are very easy for customers to open. A great example of this is Amazon’s Frustration Free Packaging, which has been in existence for 10 years. Used extensively with such products as electronics, toys, and grocery items, it has proven to be very popular, and is now being duplicated in companies around the world.

The Boxless Box

While this sounds impossible, it’s actually a concept being used by many companies. One of the best examples is Dell, which uses this concept to ship its laptop computers. Rather than putting the computers in traditional boxes, Dell instead packages the computers in messenger bags, which enables them to ship more laptops to stores in larger boxes. By using this concept, Dell says it uses 97 percent less packaging than before. Not only does this save the company money, but it also is a much more environmentally-friendly approach to packaging.

No-Foam Zones

With the increased emphasis on environmentally-friendly packaging, one of the most common ways to design boxes that waste little space is by eliminating Styrofoam. In its place, many businesses are now using what’s known as non-foam, non-petroleum-based foaming. Incorporated into the design of the box itself, it not only offers plenty of protection for the product inside the box, but also allows the box to be made much smaller, resulting in boxes that cost companies far less than previous types.

No Cardboard Inserts

Rather than continue to use cardboard inserts for packaging, many companies have done away with these in favor of other ways to separate products in a box or keep them together, whatever the case may be. For example, by eliminating cardboard inserts and instead using smaller plastic rings that hold products together very tightly, many companies can now use much smaller boxes for their shipping needs.

Multi-Depth Boxes

In many shipping situations where multiple products need to be shipped at the same time, businesses have had no choice but to use many different sizes of boxes to do so. However, thanks to the creation of multi-depth boxes, not only are fewer boxes needed to ship products, but practically no space is wasted inside the boxes. Made to be easily customized to the products they contain, the sides of the boxes are creased, enabling a person to just cut to the height needed, then fold the crease to create a customized shipping carton. Along with saving boxes and using up all available space within a box, it also greatly reduces shipping costs.

Bubble Mailers

Instead of using small boxes for many items, companies are now turning to bubble mailers in an attempt to save money and space. Available in multiple sizes, these mailers can be used for various products, cost little to ship, and if necessary can be packed into boxes, allowing a large number of products to be shipped together at far less cost.

While companies realize the name of the game in shipping is time and money, they are nevertheless always looking for new and innovative solutions to make the process even more efficient. By constantly designing new boxes to use with their products, there is little doubt the shipping process will start to have a variety of boxes in various shapes and sizes, all of which will incorporate the latest space-saving techniques thought up by logistics engineers.